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Thursday, September 11, 2014

Who Today Speaks Of The Kenyans?

When, following the Second World War, the surviving Nazi and
Japanese leaders, were arraigned in military courts to face charges of, amongst
others, crimes against humanity, Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson described the
trials as “one of the most important tributes that Power has ever paid to
Reason”. However, given that only crimes of the Axis Powers could be tried and
that it was not a defense to argue that the Allies had done many of the same
things the Axis Powers were being accused of, "one of the most important
tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason” turned out to be little more than
victors' justice.

Last week, nearly seventy years after Nuremberg, we
witnessed another example of victors’ justice in a crimes against humanity
trial. International Criminal Court prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, surprised no
one with the admission that the case against President Uhuru Kenyatta with
regard to the 2007/8 post election violence had practically collapsed. It perhaps was never a strong case to begin with and
the ICC’s dismal track record in securing convictions does not inspire much
confidence. However, it would be hard to
deny that the death knell for the case was rung on the day Uhuru and his fellow
indictee, William Ruto, won the 2013 elections and ascended to the highest
office in the land.

The campaign that followed, which sought to intimidate both
the court and its witnesses, was unprecedented in its ferocity. And it
succeeded. Many of the witnesses had sudden changes of heart or experienced
what can only be described as an attack of conscience - previously suppressed
memories of being bribed and coached abruptly surfaced. At the same time cartels were said to be hunting witnesses down, the government was expending huge
amounts of time as well as diplomatic and fiscal resources trying to stop the
trial and ignoring the Constitution. Specifically Article 143(4) which
expressly allowed for the prosecution of a sitting president.

As the President looks set to cast aside the “personal challenge” he has succeeded in disguising as a national problem, similar
things are happening in his Deputy’s case. Meanwhile, we long ago learnt that
the other 4500 pending PEV cases meant to be prosecuted locally had similarly collapsed. The rub of it is that no one will now be held
responsible for the deaths of 1200 Kenyans and the maiming and displacement of
hundreds of thousands of others.

Such impunity is, of course, nothing new in Kenya. In fact,
it was because of our scepticism over the ability of local justice system to
deal with our high and mighty that many were ready to say: “Don’t be vague; It’s the Hague.” However, when it came to it, our incestuous
elite closed ranks to protect one of their own. Nary a voice was raised, even
in the opposition when the state subverted the Constitution, refused to
cooperate with the ICC and failed in its duty to protect witnesses. In fact,
even before the election, the CORD coalition, under Uhuru’s bitter rival, Raila
Odinga, had promised to scuttle the ICC trials if he won. Few politicians on either side are perturbed
by the failure to prosecute more than a handful of PEV-related cases.

The collapse of these PEV cases, both locally and at the
ICC, is profoundly depressing because it reinforces the disposability of Kenyan
lives. The fact is, from the dawn of our history, Kenyans have been regularly
slaughtered in large numbers, mostly at the behest of our ruling elites who
picked up their bad habits from the colonials. And throughout, impunity has
been the order of the day. The Indemnity Act, which formed a crucial part of
the constitutional and legislative framework for the application of emergency laws in Northern Kenya , gives blanket immunity to all
government personnel for crimes committed against the population of North
Eastern Kenya during the Shifta War in which up to 7000 people died. No one has
been held responsible for the many subsequent massacres in the same region nor for
the government-instigated mass killings and displacements in the 1990s. According to the Kenya Human Rights Commission, “from 1991 to 1996, over 15,000
people died and almost 300,000 were displaced in the Rift Valley, Nyanza and
Western Provinces. In the run-up to the 1997 elections, fresh violence erupted
on the Coast, killing over 100 people and displacing over 100,000. ”

Rather, the men on whose watch many of these murders and
displacements occurred are today feted, both in death and in life. Within the
last month we have solemnly marked 36 years of the death of Jomo Kenyatta and
celebrated Daniel Arap Moi’s 90th birthday. At these anniversaries,
the many victims of their brutal rule remained conveniently hidden and
forgotten, their lives and suffering as cheap today as it was when it was
inflicted.

The fact that Kenya refuses to demand justice for its people
is the most telling sign of how little our lives are esteemed. The fact that we die and are displaced nameless and in nice round numbers is a marker of
our individual insignificance. There are no monuments to remind us of the thousands we
have sacrificed for our elites save for the hidden camps for the displaced
whose existence the government is quite happy to deny. For most of the time they are invisible,
their unending suffering rendered meaningless. Even during the ICC trials, they
have mostly remained unseen.

The ease with which we have forsaken our brothers and
sisters does not bode well for the future, not just of our countrymen, but also of the victims of similar across the continent. The charge of “crimes against
humanity” was first articulated in reference to the Armenian Genocide of
1915-18. However, the Turks were never formerly prosecuted under international
law. This failure to hold them to account paved the way for the Nazi Holocaust.
As Adolf Hitler rhetorically asked his generals: “Who today still speaks of the
Armenians?”

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Very True! To the ruling class a poor Kenyan is only worth his positive vote and after that can be disposed of for their advantage. They keep their own children safe and kill other people's kids for their agenda. Yet we revere them without understanding their true reality.